Rustling with Kalashnikovs

Independence has left South Sudan with much to do

ON MARCH 16th George Clooney, a film star, was arrested for picketing the Sudanese embassy in Washington, DC. His aim was to highlight the brutal campaign by Sudan's government to suppress a rebellion in the Nuba Mountains, close to the border with newly independent South Sudan. Sudanese forces have blockaded Nuba villages, bombing them from Antonov transport planes. The UN says that, with the planting of crops interrupted, 400,000 are in need of food aid.

Mr Clooney's celebrity brought welcome focus to the plight of the Nuba. But across the border in South Sudan there rages an equally vicious war, and one that attracts even less attention. In the blistering flatlands of its Jonglei state, violent clashes have for years pitted three cattle-rearing tribes against each other: the Nuer in the northeast, the Dinka in the west and the less numerous Murle across the centre and south.

Other tribes scorn the warlike Murle, who speak a distinct language and reputedly sided with the Arab north during Sudan's decades-long civil war. They are certainly fierce. Murle raids for cattle and a far more valuable commodity, children, have prompted Dinka and Nuer warriors to retaliate in kind. The bigger tribes have slaughtered thousands of Murle in the past year, while Murle have killed hundreds of Nuer in cattle raids this month alone. UN sources say more than 100,000 people in Jonglei and the neighbouring state of Eastern Equatoria have been driven from their homes.

South Sudan's weak central government has announced an offensive, deploying some 12,000 soldiers to discourage tribal raiding in Jonglei. But on a trek to the Bedunge Swamp with 12 armed rangers, your correspondent found a parched and desolate landscape of fear. The Murle burn back the grass to a blackened stubble wherever they stop, so as to see their enemies (and lions) coming. Camping out spooked the rangers. “We need 30 men to hold off the Murle,” their commander said.

Two armed figures running in the distance made the rangers level their rifles, but the figures vanished into tall grass. A few kilometres further on, a group of Murle women and children huddled around a broken lorry. They were headed for the safety of Juba, South Sudan's capital, a sign that renewed fighting is expected. The elusive figures turned out to be Murle boys protecting the convoy.

Beside another disabled lorry deeper in the bush, a Murle mother and her two children were fainting from thirst. The lorry had been shot-up by “bad people” three days before. The cattle in the transport had not been watered; they were beginning to buckle. The Dinka trader in charge of the lorry, Daniel Deng, had taken a risk buying the cows from a Murle area. There was little chance of rescue; it was two days' walk to any settlement. “Tomorrow the cattle will die,” Mr Deng said. Possibly, the children will follow.

When the rains come in April and the Bedunge turns to marsh and then glutinous mud, sending up clouds of malarial mosquitoes, this region is all but cut off from the outside world. But that is true not only of South Sudan's vast empty corners; its few main trunk routes can also remain impassable for months. This makes Juba, with its police, air connections and solid tarmac link to Uganda, a magnet. “You can drink tea on the roads here,” boasts an official in the roads ministry in the city.

It also means that Juba hogs the country's power and wealth. Government ambitions of bringing the “town to the village” remain mostly talk. Even when roads are open and bandits cleared, the cost of travel, as well as of all imported goods and skills, is prohibitive. The Americans say half their aid is lost on logistics. Simply to link the country's ends with two tarmac highways would cost over $3 billion, a sum nearly equal to the government budget. Tribal troubles aside, South Sudan also needs to demobilise thousands of soldiers, many of whom are without skills, but overly fond of extra-strength beer.

Still, there are causes for hope. The savage nature of the land makes it hard for any single tribe to wrest complete control. Strife may be chronic, but all-out civil war is unlikely. As for relations with the north, tensions that mounted following the two countries' formal divorce last July have again eased markedly. Earlier this month Sudan and South Sudan agreed to let citizens of both countries move freely, reside, conduct business, and buy and sell property in either. Sudanese herders should thus be able to return to seasonal pastures in South Sudan, and the north may now end threats to expel 500,000 “Africans” back to the south.

This boosts hopes for an early deal on sharing oil revenues with the north, which at present handles South Sudan's exports. In February the Juba government cut off the oil in protest at high transit fees, depriving both countries of revenue they desperately need and helping to cause a global oil-price spike. Getting the oil flowing would be good for everyone.